1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera apparatus using a disc-like recording medium as an information recording medium, and particularly to a camera apparatus in which a mechanical deck supporting thereon a disc rotating means is formed as substantially a D-like shape and in which a lens apparatus is located at the mechanical deck at its portion without an arc.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cited Patent Reference 1, for example, has described so far a camera apparatus according to the related art. The Cited Patent Reference 1 has described a still video camera using a hard disk apparatus of a suitable system, such as a magnetic recording system, as a recording medium to record and reproduce shooting information.
The still video camera described in this Cited Patent Reference 1 includes a camera body composed of a solid-state image pickup device for converting shot information obtained through a lens into an electric video signal and an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter for converting a video signal read out from the solid-state image pickup device into a digital video signal wherein the output from the A/D converter is recorded on a recording medium. In this still video camera, the above-described recording medium is composed of a hard disk built-in the above-described camera body and a motor shaft for rotating the hard disk is placed in parallel to the optical axis of the above-described lens.
According to the still video camera having the above arrangement, there can be expected effects in which relatively inexpensive and high-density digital video recording which is excellent in mobility becomes possible and in which bad influences, such as vibration and shock, imposed on the HDD (hard disk drive) built-in the camera body can be reduced so that excellent pictures can be recorded and reproduced.
Cited Patent Reference 2, for example, has described so far another example of this kind of a camera apparatus according to the related art. The Cited Patent Reference 2 has described a recording and reproducing apparatus having a built-in camera for recording or reproducing video information on a disc-like recording and reproducing medium such as a digital video disc.
The recording and reproducing apparatus having a built-in camera described in the Cited Patent Reference 2 is composed of a camera unit including an image pickup device for converting image information such as still picture and/or moving picture into an electric signal, a disc-like recording medium, a drive means for holding and rotating the above-described recording medium at a predetermined speed, a recording and reproducing head unit for converting the above-described electric signal into a recording signal, recording the recording signal on the above-described recording medium spirally in a non-contact fashion, reproducing recorded information from the above-described recording medium and converting reproduced information into a reproduced signal, a control circuit unit for controlling the camera unit, the driving means and the recording and reproducing head unit and a display means for displaying the above-described recording signal or reproducing signal as image information.
According to the recording and reproducing apparatus having a built-in camera having the above-mentioned arrangement, there can be expected effects in which a convenient and stable recording and reproducing apparatus having a built-in camera can be provided by a simple arrangement so that the apparatus can be made inexpensive and small in size.
However, in the camera apparatus on the above-mentioned Cited Patent Reference 1, the lens apparatus and the hard disk drive (HDD) are overlapping each other in the front and back direction and the motor shaft for rotating the magnetic disc is located in parallel to the optical axis of the lens of the lens apparatus. Therefore, there is a problem in which the camera body is increased in length in the depth direction so that the whole of the apparatus becomes large in size unavoidably.
Also, in the camera apparatus on the above-mentioned Cited Patent Reference 2, the camera unit is located in parallel to the outside of the main body in which the recording and reproducing apparatus is accommodated and the optical axis of the lens of the camera unit is set to be the outside of the outer peripheral edge of the disc loaded on the recording and reproducing apparatus. Therefore, there is a problem in which the camera body is increased in length in the lateral direction so that the whole of the apparatus becomes large in size similarly.
Cited Patent Reference 1: Official Gazette of Japanese laid-open patent application No. 6-90426
Cited Patent Reference 2: Official Gazette of Japanese laid-open patent application No. 9-320170
As described above, in the camera apparatus of this kind according to the related art, since the lens apparatus is located on substantially the same axis relative to the disc drive apparatus in an overlapping fashion and it is located distant from the disc drive apparatus with a large distance kin the lateral direction, in either case, the whole of the camera apparatus becomes large in size and hence it is not possible to make the whole of the camera apparatus small in size.